


skyline

by wordstruck



Series: i and yours and ours (iwaoi one-shots) [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Study, Falling (More) In Love, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Matsukawa Issei cameos, Misunderstandings, Pining Iwaizumi Hajime, Relationship Study, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:01:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25094308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordstruck/pseuds/wordstruck
Summary: They’re clearly still not going to talk about the fight. Oikawa is hunched up in the shotgun seat, as if trying to stay as far away from Hajime as possible inside a car. Hajime himself isn’t emotionally ready for an extended drive with his childhood-best-friend-turned-crush-turned-who-even-knows sitting beside him.But they’re both here. They both showed up anyway. And there’s a tiny Vabo-chan toy dangling from the zipper of Oikawa’s duffel, a little worse for the wear.Hajime puts the car into reverse, and drives.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Series: i and yours and ours (iwaoi one-shots) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1875211
Comments: 33
Kudos: 427
Collections: HQ Mini Bang





	skyline

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome to my fic for the hq mini bang 2020, aka the iwaoi road trip fic!! ^__^ yes, it's iwaoi, and yes, it's angst BUT IT HAS A HAPPY ENDING i promise. (i can hear my friends' skepticism now lmao). this is similar to my sakuatsu road trip fic in that it follows some of the same beats, but the story and emotions are v different.
> 
> as a summary:  
>  _Iwaizumi and Oikawa have a longstanding agreement to take the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route after graduation and before they head out into the world as adults. This is fine, except there’s a fight (a few fights) they’re not talking about, several unresolved issues between them, and all the unanswered questions about their futures. Also, Iwaizumi is maybe a little, a lot in love with his best friend._
> 
> _Still, they both show up outside Iwaizumi’s house, baggage in hand and tucked between their ribs. It’s seven hours to Toyama. It’s two weeks to graduation. It’s the rest of their lives ahead, once their trip is over._
> 
> _It’s 6 a.m., and Iwaizumi starts to drive._
> 
> biggest thank you ever to [@shiva](https://twitter.com/OlKAWAT00RU) for beta-ing and cheerleading this fic 💕💕 and to [@chai](https://twitter.com/gingermilks/) and [@lily](https://twitter.com/Lyly1805) for all their comments!! and ofc, thank you so much to my artist isa for picking this fic up and illustrating it for me ;u;💕 i'll edit isa's art in when she's posted it!
> 
> ayt, buckle up (pun intended) and i hope y'all enjoy the story!!

* * *

Back when they were fourteen, Hajime made a promise with his best friend about a road trip after graduation.

He can’t remember now why he’d been so obsessed with the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route at the time. If he thinks hard enough, he remembers reading about it somewhere — or maybe he saw it on television, on one of those documentaries he used to love watching. He _does_ remember shoving a magazine at Oikawa, on the floor by his bed, saying _I’m gonna cross the whole thing one day._

Predictably, Oikawa is less than impressed.

“But what’s the point of it?” he asks, face scrunched. Hajime shakes the magazine at him.

“It’s cool!” He stabs a finger at the pages. “Look, there’s a cable car, and then you take a bus ride through a _tunnel of snow_. And you get a whole view of the Tateyama mountain range, and the dam—”

Oikawa is staring at him now, expression gone unreadable in a way it often isn’t. But Hajime’s still caught up in his rambling, going on about hiking routes and views and the Kurobe Dam, until Oikawa cuts him off with, “Then we should go.”

“And — wait, really?”

“Yeah.” Oikawa picks up the magazine, turning it absentmindedly to a page about the different trails along Murodo. “After we graduate high school. When we’re the best volleyball players in Japan and we’ve won Nationals and before we — whatever. We’ll go.”

Hajime squints, slightly wary. Oikawa is usually averse to doing things that involve contact with nature — he plays _indoor_ volleyball for a reason. He’d flinched back from the bugs and squirmy things Hajime brought home when they were kids; whined the whole time they went camping back in fifth grade. But Oikawa also seems genuinely curious as he reads the magazine, glasses slipped low down his nose.

“You better come through, Trashykawa,” Hajime says, voice pitched in a threat.

“ _Rude_ , Iwa-chan. I said we’ll go, so we’ll go.”

(Such an easy promise at fourteen years old, back when their ambitions and aspirations had been as bright and scattered as the glow-in-the-dark constellations on the ceiling of Oikawa’s bedroom. With their junior high careers about to start, Hajime remembers feeling like they could conquer the whole of Japanese youth volleyball so long as the two of them stood by each other — so long as Oikawa always stood in the setter’s spot, tossing the ball up to where Hajime was already waiting to spike.)

At eighteen-going-nineteen, Hajime stares at the duffel bag chucked on his bed. Graduation isn’t for another two weeks, but all their classes have finished. He’s retired from the volleyball club, so there’s no more practice sessions for him to attend. He’s finished up his acceptance to Nittaidai for the upcoming semester. He still has time before he starts packing up a lifetime into several boxes to bring to Tokyo. All that’s left is for him to graduate, and then step into the next chapter of his life. Or whatever it is the motivational speeches and freshman brochures tell them.

Before that, though—

Hajime looks at the vouchers on his desk, tucked underneath a Roy Mustang Nendoroid. He’d bought them months ago, since reservations to the Alpine Route sell out far in advance. There are two vouchers, but he doesn’t know if he should still be going on this trip in the first place. And it feels stupid, feels wrong that he doesn’t know; feels wrong that he’s unsure if he should be holding on to an offhand promise made on a Sunday afternoon, between two fourteen-year-old boys who didn’t know what the future had in store for them.

Hajime remembers the aspirations he held at fourteen years old. He’d written them down on the fancy stationery an aunt had given for Christmas, and proudly pasted it to his bookshelf. Attend Kitagawa Daiichi. Go to the national junior high athletic meet with Oikawa. Win. Get into the best high school team in the prefecture. Go to the Interhigh with Oikawa. Win. Become the best spiker in Japanese youth volleyball. Go pro.

He’s one for eight on that list, and that one doesn’t even count. He’d written that list _after_ they’d gotten into Kitagawa Daiichi. He has, in total, achieved none of what his fourteen-year-old self dreamed of.

Which brings him back to the duffel bag, and the vouchers, and the road trip to the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route. And Oikawa.

The other ticket is ostensibly for Oikawa. This is their trip, after all. They planned it together, if two teenage boys talking about touring a mountain counts as ‘planning’. And normally Hajime would simply reach for his phone and message his friend to ask _are we still on for tomorrow?_ , or even _I’m not coming there to wake your stupid ass up at 6am_ , but.

But there are several fights still lingering between them, including:

> – the fight after the loss versus Karasuno, which was just like the fight they’d had before high school, and also the one before Oikawa’s injury in their first year at Seijoh, where they’d both screamed unnecessary things just to hurt each other;
> 
> – the fight about Hajime going for Nittaidai instead of testing into Chuo since Chuo hadn’t even scouted him; and,
> 
> – the fight about Oikawa pettily refusing to tell Hajime if he _is_ going to Chuo, or if he’s going pro, or if he’s moving to the other side of the world, because Oikawa didn’t want to say what he was going to do after graduation and Hajime was so tired, so fed up with Oikawa’s bitchy stubbornness and stubborn bitchiness. Hajime is not his babysitter. Oikawa is an adult capable of making his own decisions and his own consequences. If this is how the other boy chooses to deal with things, then _fine._

They haven’t spoken since. Hanamaki and Matsukawa have wisely neither intervened nor attempted to mediate. Even their mothers have kept their distance; the only hint Hajime has of his mother’s awareness is the soft, rueful look she gives him sometimes over dinner. He would feel bothered, but he’s also decided that Oikawa can go sort his own shit out and come to Hajime when he’s ready to stop being such a child, so.

So here Hajime is now, having a stare-off with a duffel bag.

In the end, he packs the bag and dumps it at the foot of his bed. He sets an alarm for 5:35 a.m. He double-checks the vouchers on his desk.

He doesn’t text Oikawa.

In the morning, though, when Hajime enters the parking lot near their apartment complex, bag slung over his shoulder:

Oikawa is there, leaning against the passenger-side door. There’s a duffel bag at his feet, hoodie lying limply on top. His shoulders are hunched up in his coat, and he’s wearing his glasses.

Hajime stops mid-stride and stares. Oikawa glances up, and their eyes meet across the parking lot. At this distance, Hajime can’t see Oikawa’s expression, but he doesn’t need to — he can read his best friend just fine. Oikawa’s posture is defensive, and he’s scuffing the concrete with his shoe in a nervous tic, and he looks six seconds from bolting if Hajime comes too close.

(Hajime also considers running; turning around and heading right back for his room. Pretending this never happened and was never going to happen. He doesn’t.)

Oikawa is here, then. They both are.

Hajime exhales sharply, and makes his way over.

“Didn’t think you’d get up on time,” he says, because it’s something safe, something easy. He can feel Oikawa’s wary stare, before his friend scoffs lightly.

“I’ve never been late to anything despite these baseless accusations,” Oikawa retorts, but the haughty tone falls a little flat. Still, Hajime lets it slide, snorting faintly. Then he pauses when he sees Oikawa rounding the hood of the car, seemingly headed for the driver’s side.

“What do you think you’re doing,” he demands flatly, clutching the keys tightly. He wouldn’t put it past Oikawa to physically wrest them from his hand.

His friend just frowns at him. “Taking first shift.”

Hajime’s eyebrows climb up his forehead. “I’m taking _all_ the shifts, idiot.”

Oikawa actually has the audacity to look affronted. “I have a license too, excuse you.”

“And I was there when you got it.” It is not an experience Hajime likes remembering. “I’m driving.”

They have a brief stare-off, Oikawa’s eyes narrowed and Hajime’s jaw set. This, too, is safe and familiar, this unstoppable force, immovable object routine. Eventually, Oikawa sniffs, mouth scrunched in a pout and nose turned up as he marches to the passenger side.

They don’t say anything further as they settle into the car. Oikawa dumps his stuff in the back while Hajime starts up the engine and fiddles with the heater. Everything about this is awkward as hell, and he knows it. They’re clearly still not going to talk about the fight. Oikawa is hunched up in the shotgun seat, as if trying to stay as far away from Hajime as possible inside a car. Hajime himself isn’t emotionally ready for an extended drive with his childhood-best-friend-turned-crush-turned-who-even-knows sitting beside him.

But they’re both here. They both showed up anyway. And there’s a tiny Vabo-chan toy dangling from the zipper of Oikawa’s duffel, a little worse for the wear.

Hajime puts the car into reverse, and drives.

( _I_ _want the keychain plush!_ Oikawa is saying at twelve years old, squinting at the gacha machine outside the convenience store. The Vabo-chan prizes are new but Oikawa’s volleyball obsession is years old. Hajime already knows, then and there, that Oikawa’s going to spend a ridiculous amount of cash trying to get a specific limited-edition prize out of a gacha machine. And it’s not his problem if Oikawa loses most of his lunch money trying so hard to get one particular toy, but.

Whatever Hajime likes to pretend, he’s not entirely immune to Oikawa’s little pouts.

 _Here_ , he says one afternoon, dropping a gacha ball unceremoniously into Oikawa’s lap. _Now will you shut up about it._

Oikawa’s expression goes — soft, in a way he so rarely is, not unless he’s around Hajime and even then — god, Hajime hopes Oikawa never asks how long it took, or how much he spent, because he’ll never admit it even under threat. It’s worth it, though, to see Oikawa light up, clipping the keychain to his school bag immediately. It’s worth enduring Oikawa’s tiny teasing remarks about how Hajime _does_ care under his brute facade, even if he just responds by whacking Oikawa on the head. It’s worth it because the little charm stays through the years, always dangling from a zipper.

It’s worth it, always, to make Oikawa happy.)

They get breakfast in Fukushima, at the first Pronto they come across. Hajime has no idea when he memorized Oikawa’s coffee order, but he gets the caramel macchiato alongside his americano while Oikawa goes to save them a table. It’s a quiet affair; Oikawa scrolls through something on his phone while Hajime reads sports news. The crowded cafe doesn’t make Hajime feel half as claustrophobic as Oikawa’s proximity does.

Exiting the cafe is an immense relief, not that Hajime would say that out loud.

He caves and calls Matsukawa after the meal, while Oikawa heads off to buy snacks at a nearby convenience store. He figures he’s got a good twenty minutes before his friend returns. Matsukawa picks up on the third ring, sleep-bleary.

“It’s—” There’s a rustling noise, a thump, and a soft _fuck._ “8:17 in the morning, Iwaizumi what the _hell_.”

“Needed to talk,” he replies shortly, because he does, in fact, need to talk. He can’t get back into a car with Oikawa in it without talking this out with _someone_ , because the enormity of the situation is suffocating. It isn’t even an elephant in the room; it’s an elephant squeezed in the back seat of Hajime’s secondhand Toyota Aqua, asking _are we there yet?_ in a too-loud whine.

“What’s up?” Matsukawa stifles a yawn on the other end, but he sounds marginally more awake and alert.

“It’s, uh...” Hajime wonders where to start. “So I’m on the road trip to the Alpine Route with Oikawa—”

“Wait,” Matsukawa cuts him off, now sounding _very_ awake. Hajime pauses obediently. “Where are you?”

He glances around. “Fukushima?”

Matsukawa hangs up.

Blinking in surprise, Hajime pulls the phone away from his ear to stare at the display. His friend has indeed dropped the call, so Hajime starts counting all the blue cars that pass by as he waits.

He gets to five before Matsukawa calls back.

“So,” his friend says, very calmly and deliberately, “you’re on a road trip with Oikawa.”

“Yeah,” Hajime replies, and he knows what his friend is thinking. Oikawa hasn’t really spoken to anyone after that last fight with Hajime, after their screaming match in an empty gym. It’s partly because no one knows what to say to him, and partly because Oikawa is plenty stubborn when he truly means to be. And partly because Hajime is as well, despite how highly people think of him.

“How’s that going?”

Hajime considers. “Awkward,” he admits, because it is. “Quiet,” because it’s that too. “We’re not talking about it.”

“Of course you’re not.” Matsukawa huffs a laugh, exasperated and fond. “Do you want to?”

It’s a tricky question. Does Hajime want to? No, not really, not in a situation like this. Not while they’re stuck together in a car, kilometers away from home. Not while he’s still not sure of how he feels about the situation, about _them_ , about Oikawa. Not while he doesn’t know what to say and how to say it. But he also knows it’s not a discussion they can put off forever. Hell, they shouldn’t have even put it off this long, but both of them are stubborn and both of them are cowards.

“I stand by what I said,” Hajime says in lieu of an answer. “I’m not his babysitter. Oikawa needs to get the fuck over himself and whatever his hang-ups are, and figure out how to move forward without dragging everything along in the dirt.”

Matsukawa makes a quiet noise of assent. Four more blue cars have passed by. Hajime leans back against the door of the driver’s seat.

“He wasn’t wrong either, though,” he finally adds, quietly.

( _Hiding behind projected inadequacy to safely excuse your failures_. It’s a remarkably succinct way of putting it. Trust Oikawa to always hit something where it hurts until it breaks.)

“So?” Matsukawa asks. His voice is tinny over the phone. Hajime wonders if he shouldn’t have talked this out sooner, and not while Oikawa’s getting jagariko chips at the konbini. “What are you going to do?”

In his peripheral vision, Hajime can see Oikawa exit the convenience store, plastic bag in hand. His friend is smiling at an old lady while he holds open the door for her, polite and charming as he always is. It’s an oddly stark reminder of all the ways they’re still the same despite all the ways they’ve changed.

“I’m,” he says, “going to drive.”

Silence on the other end of the line, then a sigh. “Text me if he tries to kill you,” Matsukawa finally replies, and Hajime laughs.

“I’ll tell you where to find my body.”

Oikawa returns without much fuss, bearing chips and juice and bizarrely, onigiri. He tosses the bag into the back seat before climbing back into the car. Hajime has already started the engine, running the finicky heater.

“Did you get everything?” he asks as Oikawa tugs his seatbelt on.

“Yeah.” A pause. “There’s some norishio chips, if you want.”

Hajime glances sideways, but Oikawa’s busying himself with wiping off his glasses. The tips of his ears and nose are pink, but that might just be the cold. Hajime turns his attention back to the road, watching before pulling out into the early morning traffic.

“Thank you.”

His friend hums a soft sound that isn’t really a response, settling back into his seat. Hajime navigates them through the city. Spring passes them by outside, but inside the car, time feels frozen.

The thing is: the fight was stupid, but both of them were right.

The problem with having known someone since you could walk is that you know them inside and out. Their strengths, their favorite food, their study habits and stupid jokes, but also their insecurities and frustrations and the places where they can splinter. That fight in December hadn’t been the first time they’d hurled words like daggers, intent only on drawing blood. They’d both been hurting and defensive, ragged at the seams from too many perceived failures and too many uncertainties.

It’s not an excuse, but it makes it — understandable. It’s some kind of reason, shitty as it all is.

( _What does it matter, anyway? We were never going to win,_ he yells, throat raw, torn volleyball net at his feet. And the sight of Oikawa at fracture point has never not hurt, especially when it’s Hajime’s doing, but this isn’t — it’s not his fault. He didn’t start this mess. 

_You can’t throw away your future over your stupid worthless pride_ , and never once has Oikawa hit back, has he returned any of Hajime’s playful smacks or exasperated punches, but here he cuts off Hajime with a shove that sends him staggering. Cheeks splotchy — eyes red and damp — hands and breaths shaking—

 _What do you know,_ Oikawa retorts, sharp despite the tremor in his voice. _Were you ever trying, or was it just easier to say Ushijima will always be stronger so you’d never have to feel responsible for a loss?_ )

If Hajime were honest — really, bone-deep honest — he’d admit why he’s still here on this trip. He knows this is more than just two boys upholding a childhood promise, for both of them. It’s an easy enough excuse, though; lets them settle into a facsimile of their friendship, all the superficialities. Never mind that Oikawa _still_ hasn’t looked at Hajime properly since they left the parking lot; never mind that Hajime has a jumble of words lodged in his ribs that threatens to spill over. Never mind the tension that hangs thick in the two feet of space between them. Never mind, never mind.

But knowing those things is one thing; acknowledging them out loud, here in this little enclosed space — it’s different. It takes a different bravery, and one Hajime’s still searching for, in the empty spaces in his chest.

He has no idea if he’ll find it while sitting here, driving along the Ban-etsu Expressway with Oikawa in the passenger seat.

Part of him wants to ask Oikawa why he’d still showed up, despite everything. Part of him is afraid to hear the answer. There’s a nagging voice at the back of his mind that whispers what if Oikawa takes off at the next pit stop, takes the train back to Sendai. What if this trip resolves nothing. They’re still not talking, after all, backdropped only by the radio.

If Hajime were honest, he’d admit half of him doesn’t want Oikawa here, but half of him wants to keep driving long past their destination.

Fortunately, the only person to hear his thoughts is himself.

(There is a slow downward spiral that began when Hajime watched Oikawa laughing in the sun, and it ends with Hajime’s heart in his throat. Because one thing Hajime also knows is that he’s in love with Oikawa, and has been for a long while. It hadn’t been a sudden realization, no tilting of the world on its axis. Oikawa simply crept into his heart the same way he’d entered Hajime’s life — he was just _there_ one day, loud and annoying and impossible. Hajime knows that this world they’ve built up for themselves goes beyond friendship now, with all the little ways they’ve made their edges fit.

Every piece of Hajime’s life is littered with traces of the bright and unruly boy sitting across from him, subtly and irrevocably. Sometimes he thinks falling in love with Oikawa was inevitable.

That revelation, too, sits in the jumble of words in his chest, but Hajime’s gone this long without letting it slip. He can go a while longer.

Oikawa dozes against the window, face mashed against his hoodie, glasses hooked on his collar. Hajime turns down the radio and drives.)

In the end, it’s Oikawa who breaks the silence.

It’s past 10 a.m., somewhere near Niigata. Hajime idly considers stopping somewhere for a bit so he can stretch his spine and flex the feeling back into his legs. Oikawa is slouched in his seat, watching the world pass by outside.

Hajime almost misses it when his friend sighs and says,

“Iwa-chan.”

He hasn’t heard that stupid nickname in weeks but he still reacts, attention jumping to the boy beside him. When he chances a look at his friend, he’s surprised to find him smiling, soft and wistful and sad. Oikawa smiles like spilled Ramune in the summer, head tilted back and eyes closed.

“I think,” he says, in a quiet admission, “sometimes, I kind of hate volleyball.”

Before Hajime can answer, Oikawa gives a tiny shake of his head. Hajime bites his lip and turns back to the road. This is a long time coming, for both of them, but he still wishes Oikawa wasn’t telling him these things, not here, not now, not yet. He doesn’t feel ready yet.

“Sometimes,” Oikawa goes on, “I wish I’d gone to Shiratorizawa.”

(Hajime feels both like he can’t breathe and like he’s breathing into too-big empty spaces.)

“I don’t know what I’m going to do when I can’t play volleyball anymore.”

(There is a slow bloom of splinters and ice between Hajime’s ribs and in his lungs.)

“I don’t know if I’m good enough to keep playing anyway.”

(A slow, downward spiral that’s still going, dragging Hajime deeper down and in.)

“I don’t know—” Oikawa confesses, soft, wavering, and every word traces a crack in Hajime then fills it with gold. “I don’t want to know how to play volleyball without you.”

(A fixed point called Oikawa Tooru, disproving the theory of an ever-expanding universe from where he sits in the passenger’s seat, two feet away from Hajime and all his painful devotion.)

It’s an apology even if it isn’t one; it’s Oikawa giving more than _I’m sorry_ , more than a reason for why he’d screamed at Hajime in the middle of the gym and then left and shut everyone out. It unspools something inside Hajime’s chest, then, and his next inhale comes lighter. When he feels brave enough to glance over, Oikawa’s staring resolutely out the windshield, but his cheeks are faintly pink. And just like every other time, Hajime feels the urge to reach out, brush the pads of his fingers over that flush of color and see if it won’t smudge off.

(He doesn’t.)

“Idiot,” he says, instead, fond and exasperated and so desperately in love. “I told you. You’ll chase this sport your whole damn life without feeling like it’s enough.”

“Iwa-chan—”

“Just keep moving forward.” Hajime huffs a small laugh. “Keep playing volleyball.”

Oikawa stares for a moment before chuckling under his breath. He leans across the center console, dropping his head on Hajime’s shoulder.

“Okay.”

It’s not an apology but it is; it’s not a conversation but it still says plenty. Hajime knows that later — after today, before they graduate, before their paths diverge — they’ll need to talk things out. He’ll have to bully Oikawa into it, sit him down and stop him from dodging questions, stop him from deflecting. He’ll have to drag his own admissions past gritted teeth, uproot them from his ribs. But they’ll talk it out. They’ll work things out. They always do.

They’ve known each other since they could walk; they’ve long learned to read in between their words. They know.

By the time they stop for an early lunch, the fault lines of hurt along the latitude of Oikawa’s shoulders have eased.

In Niigata, Hajime makes a left onto the Hokurikudo. The coastal expressway is alive with late morning traffic. To their right, for a while, the spilled light of the midday sun turns the Sea of Japan into gold. Sado Island breaks the horizon. Further still, the water stretches far and away, beyond the edges of the small worlds of two young adults.

There’s so much _world_ out there, that they haven’t seen. They’ve barely ever left the city limits of Sendai. And now Hajime’s headed for Tokyo — and the exchange program to UC Irvine, if he gets it later on — and wherever else after that. And Oikawa—

Hajime knows now: there’s more he wants to do in life than stand on a volleyball court. It isn’t a criticism of Oikawa, not something that makes either of them better or worse than the other. It hurts, knowing he won’t be following Oikawa down that road; knowing he can’t fulfill his promise that if they met in a match, Hajime would do everything to beat him. It hurts, but Hajime’s started making peace with it.

He’s started feeling brave enough to face those _projected inadequacies_ , as it were.

That, there, is part of why he’s in this car, driving seven hours to a tourist attraction five hundred kilometers away. For just a while, he can keep pretending this little world of theirs is all he’ll ever need.

(For just a while, he can keep pretending Oikawa will always be within arm’s reach, carefree and stubborn and firebright.)

Somewhere past Kashiwazaki, Hajime makes an impromptu decision and turns off the expressway to the next beachside stopover. The parking lot of the pier is empty. Oikawa dozed off earlier, and he comes awake blearily, expression scrunched, corner of his mouth crusted with drool. Hajime cackles and smacks Oikawa in the face with his coat, ducking out of the car before his best friend can come to his senses and retaliate. 

The air is chilly outside the car, despite the fact that it’s early afternoon. Hajime stretches the ache out of his limbs and jogs over to the breaker. He jumps down a little clumsily, ignoring the nearby stairs. The sand crunches under his feet, all the way to where the waves kiss the shore. The tide’s coming in, rustling as it laps at his shoes. On a whim, he leans down and sticks his hands into the water, yelping in shock and jerking back.

“Fuck, that’s cold,” he chuckles, shaking his hands violently. He turns back to see why the other boy is taking so long and—

Oikawa stands at the bottom of the steps where cement bleeds into sand. One hand shades his eyes from the sunlight, which colors him rose and gold, Hajime’s personal star. The sea breeze rustles his hair and his clothes, and he’s staring out over the open water. There’s a wistful, almost regretful slant to his expression. Hajime wants to wipe it off his face, make it so he never looks like this again. He wants to run far, far away. He wants to drag Oikawa out into the water and kiss him until they both taste of salt, until they’re drenched to their bones.

For a still-beat moment, he almost does.

Then he scoops up two handfuls of freezing water and flings them at Oikawa’s face.

“ _Iwa-chan!_ ” Oikawa shrieks, recoiling and almost falling over. Hajime just laughs, loud and graceless, flinging more sea water at Oikawa then sprinting away when his friend starts coming after him. They’re the only two people stupid enough to be on a beach in early April, and Hajime feels like they’re the only two people in the whole universe. When Oikawa catches up and shoves at him, Hajime doesn’t kiss him. He just drags his friend with him into the shallows and laughs until he loses his breath. Around them, the water stretches out and out and out, and for a moment, the horizon beckons, promising they’ll be immortal. Here, at the shore where all the world’s oceans end.

“I spent half our high school life terrified that I was holding you back,” he tells the pale spring sky, because it is his turn for confessions. “I was so afraid of never being enough for you.” His eyes sting. He doesn’t cry. “I still am.”

Oikawa’s sea-damp hand threads through his and squeezes.

“Never,” he says, and oh, how Hajime loves him. “Not you, Iwa-chan. Never you.”

Their feet are cold by the time they return to the car, hems of their jeans stiff and damp with drying saltwater. Oikawa keeps grumbling about hypothermia and losing his toes, to which Hajime just rolls his eyes. It’s not _his_ fault he was the only one sensible enough to bring more than one spare pair of socks. Still, he grudgingly turns up the shitty heater of his car and lets Oikawa tuck his feet up on the seat. He even lets Oikawa hook his phone up to the stereo, suffering his best friend’s shitty J-pop playlist.

It’s worth it, after all, making Oikawa happy.

They don’t talk for the rest of the drive, but Hajime finds he doesn’t mind. It feels like the quiet between them when they’re in one of their rooms, tucked away from everything but each other. It feels easy, not empty.

He listens to Oikawa humming along to a song, and drives.

Toyama is blissfully uncrowded when they arrive; Hajime had deliberately picked a slot just after the full route opened for the season. It’s still too cold for most tourists, but that just makes it more perfect for the two of them. It also means they’re alone in their cable car, the two of them seated opposite each other as they stare out of the compartment at the valley below.

(And if Hajime sneaks more than a few glances at Oikawa’s wide-eyed expression, his child-like and infectious wonder, well. Blame his helpless, hopeless heart.)

They’re halfway through the next phase — a bus ride between the cable car and the snow tunnel — when Oikawa abruptly leans over, burying his face into Hajime’s shoulder. One hand sneaks over his, threading their fingers together tight. Hajime flinches, surprised, then turns to frown down inquiringly at his friend, but Oikawa has his face hidden, smushed against Hajime’s coat. He doesn’t say anything, just sits there, tucked close.

Hajime squeezes his hand, questioning. Oikawa squeezes back, shifts so he’s more comfortable.

They stay that way for the rest of the ride.

The snow tunnel is _breathtaking._

They’ve both seen pictures, of course, but it’s — different, standing there amid the high walls of white that seem to stretch on endlessly, trapping them in. It’s simultaneously suffocating and spellbinding. Hajime reaches out, scrunching some of the snow, grinning as it crumbles beneath his gloved palm. Oikawa’s snapping a constant stream of photos on his phone, hopping around and chattering excitedly.

“The walls are supposed to reach _twenty meters high_ , Iwa-chan, for a _whole kilometer_. Can you believe that?” He turns to Hajime, grinning widely, gesturing at the snow around them. Hajime rolls his eyes in fond exasperation, because of course he knows. He was the one obsessed with this place as an adolescent. “We’re a whole _three thousand meters_ above the starting point, that’s three entire kilometers, how do you even—”

Hajime smashes a handful of snow into Oikawa's face and then kisses him.

He drags Oikawa down by the scarf, steals his next exhale, cuts off his words. Then he sets off on a dead run once he pulls away, dodging people and tripods, laughing so hard the air before him turns to haze. He can hear Oikawa chasing after him, and it’s only a few moments before his friend grabs the back of his parka and almost sends them staggering into a nearby wall.

“What the hell was _that_ for?” Oikawa demands, clearly flustered. His glasses are a little fogged over. Hajime just shakes his head, smiling open-mouthed.

“We’re on top of the world,” he says, breathless. It's freezing out, exhaled air coming in small clouds. His hands haven’t let go of Oikawa’s stupid posh coat.

Oikawa snorts, bending over in laughter. “Yeah we fucking are,” he agrees, grinning.

“We’re on top of the fucking world!” Hajime half-shouts, stumbling into Oikawa’s personal space. Oikawa laughs harder, then takes a deep breath and screams,

“ _FUCK!_ ”

The word reverberates through the snow corridor, drawing scandalized stares and scowls. A few people cover their children’s ears, glaring in affront. Hajime absolutely cracks up, stuffing a hand over his mouth as he stumbles forward and starts running again. Oikawa follows right beside them, matching his pace, face flushed and eyes starbright. Both of them are grinning so hard it hurts.

Neither of them have achieved what their fourteen-year-old selves had dreamed of, at the beginning of their sporting careers. Neither of them are what life promised they would be at sixteen, doused in the artificial lights of the Kamei Arena court. They are eighteen-going-nineteen and everything ahead of them is uncharted, unsteady, unsure.

They are not the protagonists of the world. They were never even the protagonists of high school volleyball.

Things will never feel like this again — standing at the mouth of a tunnel of snow, overlooking a winter-turned-spring valley, with Oikawa toppling into him as they stagger to a halt. Oikawa’s hand fumbling into Hajime's pocket as they catch their breath. Oikawa standing beside him, within arm’s reach, pink cheeks and an expression like starlight.

He looks how Hajime feels — like love.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says, like every time he’s said that stupid nickname:

when they were six and Oikawa asked him to play volleyball together;

when they stepped onto a court for their first game on a proper team;

the first and last and every time they lost a match;

when they were in the gym with Oikawa screaming that Hajime didn’t understand;

when Oikawa confessed he didn’t want to know what volleyball was like without him.

(Hajime wants to hear Oikawa say it every day for the rest of their lives.)

“I’m not going to Chuo,” Oikawa tells him.

Hajime hums, lets the other boy know he’s listening.

“I got — I mean, I wasn’t expecting it, we’ve never even — but there’s—” The words come tumbling out, too fast and tripping over each other, but Hajime is listening. “I got an offer — in Tokyo. From a team in Tokyo.”

Hajime reaches out, threads gloved fingers through Oikawa’s hair and tugs him down so their foreheads are almost touching.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says again, “what if I’m no good? What if I can’t toss to them properly? What if—”

“Bakatooru,” and this, too, he says like every time he’s said it since Oikawa had barged into his life and put down roots without Hajime’s permission. “Shut up. I told you, didn’t I?”

Oikawa glares at him. Hajime cocks an eyebrow. His friend’s expression softens into a smile.

“Okay.”

Hajime kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading !!!!!!!!! aaaaaa i really hope you guys liked it (and didn't get your hearts broken too much hkasdhs) ^__^ all the locations used here are real (including the beach!), and i had a google maps route from sendai to the alpine route open in an attempt at accuracy HAHAHA. the tateyama kuroba alpine route snow tunnel looks amazing, and hopefully someday in the future i'm able to visit. lemme know what you guys think 💕
> 
> also, come say hi on social media! i'm on twitter as [@redluxite](https://twitter.com/redluxite), where i yell about haikyuu a lot (+ vld, bnha, etc) XD i talk a lot about ongoing projects, HCs, AUs, etc, and you can find other ways to support my writing!
> 
> PS: you can send questions, reactions, comments, etc about the fic or anything else to my [cc inbox!!](https://curiouscat.me/redluxite) i'd love to hear from you guys and talk about the fic, or iwaoi, or haikyuu, or anything else really akjdsja


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